Article 6 02/20/10

Not Just a Parked Car

Currently, parked cars are in terms considered inanimate objects. Parked vehicles are big hunks of metal, plastics, and cloth. The mechanical engineering department at the University of Michigan is actively working to try to change that. They want the parked hunks of metals, plastics, and cloth to serve a purpose.

The University of Michigan is engineering a new energy transfer system for cars within a city. The idea is when you park your hybrid, or even your fully electric vehicle, you plug into a charging station. Depending upon your batteries charge and your discretion, you can choose to either charge your cars battery, or sell energy back to the power company.

This is a great idea but is it worth it? After reading the original article, and after doing some research, I did a little pondering of my own. In conclusion to my thoughts, I came up with the following; in order for someone to feel the need to sell back electricity, there would need to be a benefit. Benefit being, more than likely, money. Let’s say on your new fully electric vehicle, you charge your batteries of your car from an outlet in your garage. Let’s also say that you pay one dollar per unit of energy that comes out of that electric outlet. First off, if you sell your cars energy for less than one dollar per unit back to the power company, obviously your loosing money, and no one will participate in that program. Secondly, if you sell energy back at the same price per unit, you may get a small percentage of participants in this program, but without any benefit, it won’t be worth the hassle to most. But, if you can sell energy back to the power company for $1.10, this may become an interesting program to most everyone, because if you can drive your electric car to work, park at one of these stations, sell energy for more than what you paid, you may have a large portion of your travel expenses paid for just by plugging your car in! Not a bad idea, if there is a benefit to the consumer.

Mechanical engineers across the globe are working to improve the world, to enhance technology in the world that surrounds us. In the future, this new invention may litter parking ramps and lots around our city, our state, and even our country!

Original Source:
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-02/future-electric-cars-could-earn-money-homeowners-while-sitting-still

Supporting Sources:

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-02/future-electric-cars-could-earn-money-homeowners-while-sitting-still

http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2009-06/wind-power

http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2009-10/google-working-smart-charging-software-electric-cars

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100218173118.htm